David Ladd (born February 5, 1947) is an American actor and producer.
Ladd was born in Los Angeles, California, and is the son of Alan Ladd and Sue Carol. His siblings include Carol Lee Veitch, Alana Ladd Jackson and Alan Ladd Jr. Ladd attended Harvard School in Los Angeles and following the death of his father in 1964 went on to attend and graduate from the University of Southern California where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree, whilst also fulfilling his military obligations in the Air Force Reserves.
In 1972, Ladd met actress Cheryl Stoppelmoor (who would become known as Cheryl Ladd upon the couple's marriage in 1973), and had a daughter, Jordan (also an actress). In 1977, Cheryl became a star, replacing Farrah Fawcett in the televison series “Charlie’s Angels” and David, having always been interested in the behind-the-scenes of the industry, began to turn his attention toward producing. His first productions were for ABC and included specials and movies of the week, most notably "When She Was Bad” (1979) starring Cheryl and Robert Urich. David and Cheryl Ladd divorced in 1980.
In 1982, Ladd married actress Dey Young (the younger sister of actress Leigh Taylor-Young), with whom he has another daughter, Shane Ladd.
Ladd’s professional career in Hollywood began in 1957 with a supporting role in a film starring his father entitled “The Big Land”. As a result of that film, he was offered a role playing a mute by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. in the 1958 movie “The Proud Rebel”, once again playing opposite his father and co-starring Olivia de Havilland. For this role Ladd won a Golden Globe award as the "Best Newcomer of 1958", and received a Best Supporting Actor nomination. He was also included in Film Daily’s Filmdom’s Famous Five critic’s award. Ladd followed this success with a series of films including “The Sad Horse” (1959); “A Dog of Flanders” (1960); “Raymie” (also 1960); “Misty” (1961), as well as numerous television appearances including “Bonanza”; “Zane Grey Theatre”; “Wagon Train”; “Pursuit” and Shirley Temple’s “Story Book Theatre” (as Tom Sawyer) amongst others.
After completing college and military duty (in which he put his acting career on hold), Ladd returned to acting making guest appearances in numerous television shows including “Gunsmoke”; “Ben Casey”; "Love American Style" (pilot); “Family Affair”; “Police Story”; “Medical Center”; “The Quest”; “Kojak”; “Emergency” (spin-off pilot), and “Fantasy Island”. His other feature film credits include “RPM” (1970); “Catlow” (1971); “Deathline” (aka “Raw Meat”) (1972); “The Day of the Locust” (1975); “The Treasure of Jamaica Reef” (also 1975); “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” (1977) and “The Wild Geese” (1978).
In 1982, Ladd began working at Columbia Pictures as a creative executive. Shortly thereafter, his brother-in–law, John Veitch, stepped down as president of Columbia and asked Ladd to join him in establishing a new production company based at Columbia.
Ladd’s first solo producing credit came in the motion picture “The Serpent and the Rainbow” (1987), based on Wade Davis’ non fiction book of the same name. The film was quite successful and as a result he was asked to join his brother Alan Ladd Jr. in forming Pathe Films (1988). While there they produced many films before acquiring the venerable MGM.
Ladd became a senior production executive at MGM and was part of the key team that was responsible for the resurgence of the studio (1989 – 1997). He was responsible for a variety of films including the smash hit “Get Shorty” (1995).
Ladd left MGM as an executive in 1998, and signed a deal to produce movies for them. His first production was a re-imagining of the hit TV series “The Mod Squad”, which he shared an Executive Producer credit with Aaron Spelling, whom he had first worked with on “The Zane Grey Theatre” in 1961.
During this time, MGM changed hands a couple of times but Ladd was able to forge ahead with his productions. He found a manuscript written by John Katzenbach and developed it as a screenplay. The Gregory Hoblit directed "Hart's War" (2002) starred Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell and Terrence Howard. Ladd followed this up with the 2003 comedy “A Guy Thing”, which starred Jason Lee, Julia Stiles and Selma Blair.
Shortly thereafter, MGM was sold and Ladd went out into the world as an independent. He is currently developing projects for Fox, Universal and Paramount as well as projects for the independent market place. In 2008, he helped shepherd Kevin Sheridan’s “Leaving Barstow” which won numerous awards on the film festival circuit.
Ladd spent part of 2007 teaching producing for film at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
He is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and an emeritus member of the Screen Actors Guild.
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